Don Carlo (Verdi)

Where: Royal Danish Opera & Finnish National Opera

Director: Davide Livermore

Conductor: Jordan de Souza (Copenhagen), Hannu Lintu (Helsinki)

Even in its four-act version, Verdi’s historical epic based on Schiller is a masterpiece, as the personal and the political tangle in a web of 16th-century Spanish intrigue. Davide Livermore’s new staging is a Nordic co-production (appearing eventually at Norwegian National Opera too) and, with familiar collaborators D-Wok and Giò Forma, is likely to be heavily reliant on video.

Opens: 8 September 2024 (Copenhagen)

Opens: 31 January 2025 (Helsinki)

Les Brigands (Offenbach)

Where: Opéra de Paris

Director: Barrie Kosky

Conductor: Stefano Montanari

Barrie Kosky has a special affinity with operetta, so will doubtless have a ball with Offenbach’s fast-paced opéra bouffe about a band of jolly robbers – who love disguises – in search of new exploits. Expect a Spanish delegation, a massive heist, Carabinieri who always arrive too late… and expect to be confused: it’s all part of the fun!

Opens: 21 September 2024

Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky)

Where: The Royal Opera

Director: Ted Huffmann

Conductor: Henrik Nánási

After Kasper Holten’s 2013 misfire, the first new production of the Royal Opera’s season sees American director Ted Huffmann make his main stage debut with Tchaikovsky’s ‘lyric scenes’ on Pushkin’s beloved novel in verse. Kristina Mkhitaryan and Gordon Bintner sing Tatyana and the brooding title character respectively.

Opens: 24 September 2024

Wozzeck (Berg)

Where: Opéra de Lyon, Royal Swedish Opera

Director: Richard Brunel

Conductor: Daniele Rustioni (Lyon), Alan Gilbert (Stockholm)

Richard Brunel sets his production of Alban Berg’s powerful opera (setting Georg Büchner’s play) between the two world wars, where the soldier Wozzeck is being manipulated in a surveillance society. The production plays twice in the autumn: in Lyon, Stéphane Degout and Ambur Braid sing Wozzeck and his wife, Marie, while Swedish stars Peter Mattei and Malin Byström take over the reins in Stockholm.

Opens: 2 October 2024 (Lyon)

Opens: 16 November 2024 (Stockholm)

The Turn of the Screw (Britten)

Where: English National Opera

Director: Isabella Bywater

Conductor: Duncan Ward

ENO has a fine track record with Britten operas. After her luminous staging of Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, Isabella Bywater directs Britten’s creepy ghost opera based on Henry James’ novella. Ailish Tynan is the Governess, Robert Murray sings the sinister Peter Quint.

Opens: 11 October 2024

Rusalka (Dvořák)

Where: Teatro di San Carlo

Director: Dmitri Tcherniakov

Conductor: Dan Ettinger

Stéphane Lissner continues to flex his muscles – and his credit card – to restore the San Carlo to its glory days by opening the season with a new production of Rusalka by Dmitri Tcherniakov. Asmik Grigorian is a known quantity in the title role – seen in Madrid and London – but her Prince here is exciting young British tenor Adam Smith.

Opens: 20 November 2024

La forza del destino (Verdi)

Where: Teatro alla Scala

Director: Leo Muscato

Conductor: Riccardo Chailly

La Scala’s season opening is always a glittering affair. This year the stars – Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufmann, Ludovic Tézier – align for a new production of Verdi’s fateful Forza directed by Leo Muscato. Anyone who saw the same trio of singers sizzle in the Royal Opera’s staging in 2019 won’t hesitate to hop on a plane to Milan.

Opens: 7 December 2024

Un ballo in maschera (Verdi)

Where: Oper Zürich

Director: Adele Thomas

Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda

Welsh director Adele Thomas returns to Zurich for a new staging of Un ballo in maschera, a tale of regicide based on the real story of Gustavus III of Sweden. So inflammatory was the plot that Verdi had to relocate the action to America, the king turning into the governor of Boston. Thomas’ last Verdi in Zurich (Il trovatore) came to The Royal Opera. Might this production be heading in the same direction?

Opens: 8 December 2024

Aida (Verdi)

Where: Metropolitan Opera

Director: Michael Mayer

Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin

After more comebacks than Frank Sinatra, Sonja Frisell’s epic 1988 staging finally bites the Egyptian dust. But this is the Met, so don’t expect any minimalist, grungy replacement from Michael Mayer – we’re promised ‘towering pyramids and gilded tombs’ with animations and projections thrown in. Angel Blue and Piotr Beczała star as doomed lovers across the wrong side of the political divide.

Opens: 31 December 2024

Die Frau ohne Schatten (Richard Strauss)

Where: Deutsche Oper Berlin

Director: Tobias Kratzer

Conductor: Sir Donald Runnicles

Tobias Kratzer directed a fascinating Der Zwerg at Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2019 and returns next season
for a much bigger work: Strauss’ gargantuan Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow). British tenor David Butt Philip (who sang in Der Zwerg) takes on the
role of the Kaiser, opposite Jane Archibald’s Kaiserin.

Opens: 26 January 2025

Ariadne auf Naxos (Strauss)

Where: Staatsoper Hamburg

Director: Dmitri Tcherniakov

Conductor: Kent Nagano

In his final season as music director, Kent Nagano teams up with enfant térrible Dmitri Tcherniakov for another Strauss opera. Following the Russian director’s Elektra and Salome (which shared essentially the same set), will the house of Agamemnon serve triple duty as the home of the richest man in Vienna whose ambitious plan to stage two entertainments in a single evening results in a comic mash-up of opera seria and burlesque?

Opens: 26 January 2025

Der fliegende Holländer (Wagner)

Where: Opera North

Director: Annabel Arden

Conductor: Garry Walker

Anyone who saw their enterprising Ring cycle will know that Opera North has a fine track record with Wagner. Plunging into the storm, Annabel Arden tackles the legend of The Flying Dutchman with Robert Hayward in the doomed title role and Laura Wilde as Senta, the woman who attempts to save him.

Opens: 1 February 2025

Lohengrin (Wagner)

Where: Gran Teatre del Liceu

Director: Katharina Wagner

Conductor: Josep Pons

Katharina Wagner, the composer’s great-granddaughter and artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival, brings a new production of Lohengrin to Barcelona, postponed from 2020 because of the pandemic. Klaus Florian Vogt is not everyone’s cup of tea as a Wagnerian, but his ethereal tenor suits the role of the mysterious knight who arrives in Brabant on a swan to defend Elsa, who stands accused of her brother’s death.

Opens: 17 March 2025

Khovanshchina (Mussorgsky)

Where: Grand Théâtre de Genève

Director: Calixto Bieito

Conductor: Alejo Pérez

Aviel Cahn continues his bold programming at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Mussorgsky’s opera of Russian politics and rebellion is prime fodder for a contemporary update when Calixto Bieito takes on this assignment. Dmitry Ulyanov, John Relyea and Raehann Bryce-Davis lead a fine cast.

Opens: 25 March 2025

I Grotteschi (Monteverdi)

Where: La Monnaie | De Munt

Director: Rafael R Villalobos

Conductor: Leonardo García Alarcón

Unfamiliar with Monteverdi’s I Grotteschi? That’s because he never wrote it. Continuing the Belgian house’s recent trend of opera mash-ups (Bastarda!, Rivoluzione e Nostalgia), Rafael R Villalobos throws the characters from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea together in a family saga set during a pandemic.

Opens: 11 April 2025

Parsifal (Wagner)

Where: Oper Frankfurt

Director: Brigitte Fassbaender

Conductor: Thomas Guggeis

The great mezzo-turned-director Brigitte Fassbaender takes on Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel (sacred festival stage play) about the ‘pure fool’ Parsifal and the Knights of the Holy Grail. Barenboim protegé Thomas Guggeis conducts.

Opens: 18 May 2025

Tannhäuser (Wagner)

Where: Wiener Staatsoper/Vienna State Opera

Director: Lydia Steier

Conductor: Philippe Jordan

Bogdan Roščić continues his quest to refresh the Haus am Ring’s Wagnerian repertoire with a new production of Tannhäuser by American director Lydia Steier. Music director Philippe Jordan concludes his short-lived tenure in Vienna with the composer he arguably conducts the best.

Opens: 22 May 2025

Boris Godunov (Mussorgsky)

Where: Dutch National Opera

Director: Kirill Serebrennikov

Conductor: Vasily Petrenko

An opera about a despotic Russian ruler from one of the bad boy Russian directors?

Don’t expect Kirill Serebrennikov’s staging of Boris Godunov to be a period costume drama! Do expect video footage and biting political commentary. Polish bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny takes the title role in Mussorgsky’s craggy historical epic in which the chorus also makes a telling contribution.

Opens: 10 June 2025

Pénélope (Fauré)

Where: Bayerische Staatsoper

Director: Andrea Breth

Conductor: Susanna Mälkki

This year marks the centenary of the death of Gabriel Fauré, not noted as an opera composer, but next season there’s a rare chance to see his only opera, Pénélope, performed for the first time at the Bayerische Staatsoper. The plot, taken from Homer’s Odyssey, concerns the return of Ulysses to his wife, Pénélope, who is besieged by suitors. Can they be reunited harmoniously?

Opens: 18 July 2025

Die schweigsame Frau (Richard Strauss)

Where: Staatsoper Berlin

Director: Jan Philipp Gloger

Conductor: Christian Thielemann

In his first season as Daniel Barenboim’s successor at the Staatsoper Berlin, Christian Thielemann doesn’t conduct his first new production until July. Strauss’ comedy Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman) is a rarity in itself, so Jan Philipp Gloger’s staging will be doubly welcome.

Opens: 19 July 2025

Four world premieres

Fanny and Alexander (Karlsson)

Where: La Monnaie | De Munt

Director: Ivo van Hove

Conductor: Ariane Matiakh

Ingmar Bergman comes to Brussels in an operatic adaptation of his semi-autobiographical 1982 film Fanny and Alexander by Swedish composer Mikael Karlsson and librettist Royce Vavrek. Thomas Hampson sings the Bishop Edvard Vergérus who oppresses his stepchildren to rid Alexander of his vivid fantasies. Based on one of the longest films in cinematic history (312 minutes), Karlsson’s score – a mix of acoustic and electronic – should be somewhat tauter.

Opens: 1 December 2024

Festen (Turnage)

Where: The Royal Opera

Director: Richard Jones

Conductor: Edward Gardner

At Covent Garden, Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Lee Hall write a new opera based on Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s film Festen (The Celebration) about a wealthy hotel owner who gathers friends and family to celebrate his 60th birthday, where his children must confront the pain of their past.

Opens: 11 February 2025

Il nome della rosa (Filidei)

Where: Teatro alla Scala

Director: Damiano Michieletto

Conductor: Ingo Metzmacher

Umberto Eco’s debut novel – a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery – was turned into a film, starring Sean Connery, in 1986. Italian composer Francesco Filidei draws on variations on Gregorian melodies in his operatic adaptation, with Lucas Meachem taking on the role of William Baskerville.

Opens: 27 April 2025

Dark Side of the Moon (Unsuk Chin)

Where: Staatsoper Hamburg

Production: Dead Centre

Conductor: Kent Nagano

A Faustian tale for the 21st century: Unsuk Chin draws inspiration for her second opera from the life and work of the legendary physicist Wolfgang Pauli and his relationship with the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. Dr Keiron leads a double life: a highly respected scientist by day, he dives into the shady underworld at night in a restless search for human happiness.

Opens: 18 May 2025